Tales of a Landlady: At the boilers mercy

French landlady Ruth Parker De Latude rented out her house for New Year: but getting away wasnt as easy as she hoped

I left Yorkshire as a young girl to become an au pair, ended up marrying a French baron and never went home. I have been living in France for 25 years — longer than I lived in England.

Since 1998 we have been doing up the properties on my husband’s estate in the Languedoc region of southern France and renting them out. In all we have four properties that we let: two cottages, one apartment and the Bergerie, a manor house. We spent about £35,000 on each before renting them out. In some cases we had to start from scratch. We do mainly holiday lets, but some long-term ones. I have a couple staying in the apartment opposite ours who have come here to escape the winter in Canada.

We live in an apartment on the estate, not only so we can be around for the guests, but also for our